Age discrimination in Spain

[johneve]

In theory, I believe, age discrimination in the employment market is illegal in Spain, but it seems to be rife. Many job advertisements for English teachers are blatant about, explicitly setting an upper age limit of 50 or 40 or even 35. Others are a little less blatant, but boast on their website of the youth of their staff.

I am a 51-year-old graduate with a CELTA (B) and teaching experience, though most of the experience was not very recent, and my Spanish is pretty good (C1). I have been applying for work in Spain since last December and in all that time I have managed to get just one interview. Most of my many applications are simply ignored by employers.

I certainly don't believe I am too old to do the job and I don't think students would think me too old to tolerate, but I'm not sure what, if anything, I can do to persuade employers that I am worth interviewing. Has anyone any observations, comments or suggestions to make?

[Alex Case]

I'd imagine the job market isn't too good for anyone at the moment, so the lack of responses is probably mainly that rather than age. If it is a major factor, the solutions would seem to be:
- Apply to the more serious schools, e.g. those that are Cambridge CELTA teacher training centres
- Get more qualifications, e.g. YL extension, Diploma or a Teaching Business English cert, to make your CV stand out

[andyparkin]

John, my sympathies are with you. My wife and I are 58 and are finding more and more places now requiring younger teachers. We've never worked in Spain but we did two years in South America (Colombia and Chile). They don't seem to be hung up on age issues. Have you thought about using your Spanish over there? Good luck!